What a year it has been here at Jamie Schultz Photography!   I want to take a moment to express a sincere thank you to my clients who have entrusted me to capture their families throughout the year.  It is truly an honor to work with each and every one of you.  From all of us at Jamie Schultz Photography we wish you the very best in the coming year.

Below are a few holiday projects that left our studio over the past few weeks…oh, what fun we had pulling these together!

This one-year birthday shoot was bittersweet.   I’ve been photographing Cleo every few months since she was a newborn and in the process I’ve become quite smitten with her.  She is so full of personality and absolutely adores being in front of the camera…especially when there is a mound of frosted goodness involved.  :)  I sure am going to miss our meetings every few months, but her mom reassures me they will be back again.  Happy Birthday, sweet girl!  I’ll see you next year!

I recently had the incredible opportunity to shoot an international ad campaign for Mpix Photography Lab.  The icing on the cake was that the assignment was to shoot one of the most talented photographers I know!  Shelley Paulson and I met years ago at a workshop and since then I have watched her style and techniques evolve into something simply amazing.  She has been an inspiration to me and it was truly an honor to be asked to do this project.  Congratulations to you, Shelley, for being chosen for this ad campaign!

Some of you may remember The Giving Jar I posted about at the beginning of the month. This year we replaced our traditional advent calendar with a jar filled with 25 “giving tasks” for us to do every day until Christmas. The experiences and opportunities throughout the process have been incredible and our boys gleaned more out of this than we ever dreamed possible. We feel so very blessed to have two such hard-working and compassionate young boys! From all of us at Jamie Schultz Photography & Design Studio, we wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I was so happy when Susan contacted me about photographing her family again this year.  Susan has had an incredibly tough year with the loss of her father and helping a dear friend through a horrible illness.  What I love about Susan though is that no matter the circumstances she always seems so full of joy.  Rarely do I see her without a smile on her face and she always finds a way to see the silver lining in any situation.  I’ve come to realize how important photos are to Susan and I’m honored that she keeps coming back to me year after year.  It’s been wonderful getting to know her and her family!

We’ve been so blessed with such fabulous weather this fall with the occasional COLD day here and there.  This session happened to fall on one of those days and WOW, was it cold.  We decided we’d be much better off in the toasty warm studio…and that we were!  Here are a few of my favorites from this session.

How does that old saying go…An object in motion, stays in motion?  I think it’s safe to say that the mama to these little tigers stays in motion.  Jack and Emma are two precious (albeit very busy) little kids.  Jack is a bit of a ham and loves his time in front of the camera.   He wanted to show me how fast he could run (see the third image down) and his little sister decided to follow suit.  The only difference with Emma is that she kept running, and running, and running.  Her little run was adorable and the big grin she kept on her face while running was priceless…she was so proud of herself!  It’s always such a treat to photograph these two and this year was no exception.  And I especially love that mom decided to step in front of the camera for a shot at the end of the session.

One of the great things about working with families year after year is that you truly get to know who they are as people and how they operate as a family unit.  This family is one that exudes joy, fun & laughter.  They are all so quick witted and hilarious…even the little one is developing quite a sense of humor. As always, we had such a great time during our shoot and I only had to put my camera down a hand full of times to wipe the tears from my eyes after laughing so hard.

As we head into the holiday season I wanted to take a moment to share with you a project we’re doing with our kids this year.  My husband and I want very much for our children to value the gift of giving. In today’s society it seems so easy to want for more.  It also feels that people are willing to take far more than they are willing to give.  We desire more than that for our kids, so this year we decided to replace our traditional advent calendar with a “Giving Jar” to help countdown the days until Christmas.  The idea came to me as my oldest son and I were talking about ways in which we can help others.  He mentioned a few tasks that I knew we could accomplish, so I rounded out the list to make 25 “giving tasks”.  The tasks include things like holding the door open for someone, writing a thank you letter to a soldier, and delivering food to the local food shelf.  I typed the tasks on white paper and tied them with a ribbon and placed them in our jar.  Each morning the kids will select one scroll and they have until the end of the day to complete the task.  Once completed, we will chat about the task and they can each select a piece of candy from the jars.

In order to ensure we could complete each task I did some homework ahead of time.  I started by calling local organizations that I thought could use donations to get specific requests.  We also wanted to ensure the kids could be directly involved in most of the tasks rather than just dropping off or sending donations.

This month is going to be filled with some amazing opportunities for my family.  Our hope is that our children learn that giving back is a bigger gift than anything that would ever fit under a tree.

Elly came out to Hudson to have her senior photos taken a few months ago.  When her mom called and said she was coming back with her sisters for a sibling shoot I was ecstatic!  These girls were such a hoot and I loved seeing the bond they have with one another.  We shared a lot of laughs throughout the session as we ran from location to location to beat the incoming storm.  We must have looked like quite the crew running the streets in our heels.  :)